Steering Wheel Planar Unit with Thermal Bonding for Flat Wire Fixation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing heater and sensor units in steering wheels often cause discomfort due to irregularities and require complex manufacturing processes, leading to issues like thread fraying, local heat anomalies, and increased thickness.
Innovation Solution
A planar unit with a thermal fusion bonding part on the outermost layer, where a sewing thread is inserted into the linear body, ensuring a flat shape and reducing the need for multiple locking members, and allowing for easier design changes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a heater wire is arranged in a predetermined pattern shape on a base material and tightly stretched to prevent wrinkling, then the heater unit can be incorporated into the steering wheel, but irregularities due to the heater wire appear and cause user discomfort
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a thin film base material that can conform to the heater wire shape while maintaining surface flatness. This thin film structure allows the heater wire to be tightly stretched and secured without creating visible or tactile irregularities on the steering wheel surface, thus preventing user discomfort while ensuring reliable heater incorporation.
Solution Approach 2:
The heater wire is divided into multiple segments or sections that are individually secured to the base material. This segmentation allows each section to be properly positioned and stretched without causing cumulative irregularities, maintaining both the reliability of heater integration and surface flatness for user comfort.
2Reliability
If multiple locking members are used to secure the heater wire in a predetermined pattern, then the heater wire can be fixed reliably, but the manufacturing process becomes complex and productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts or removes the complex locking member mechanism from the traditional heater wire securing method. Instead of using multiple locking members, the invention employs a simplified base material structure that directly secures the heater wire through its inherent properties, thereby maintaining reliable fixation while dramatically simplifying the manufacturing process and improving productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical locking member system with a thermal or chemical bonding method. The base material is heated or treated to create a bonding surface that secures the heater wire without requiring physical locking members, thus eliminating the complexity of mechanical fastening while maintaining reliable fixation and enhancing manufacturing efficiency.
3Manufacturing precision
If the heater unit is pasted to the covering material in advance and then assembled with the wheel core material, then the heater unit can be positioned correctly, but the assembly process becomes complex and productivity is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the heater unit positioning function into the base material itself, which is integrated with the covering material. The base material serves dual purposes: it secures the heater wire and provides the positioning function. This merging eliminates the need for separate positioning steps and complex assembly procedures, thereby maintaining manufacturing precision while significantly improving assembly efficiency and productivity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The planar unit prevents irregularities and discomfort during steering operations while improving productivity by eliminating the need for complex assembly methods and reducing thread-related issues.
Implementation Method 1
a thermal fusion bonding part is formed on an outermost layer of the linear body... subjecting the base material and the linear body to heat and pressure to make a thickness of a location where the linear body is arranged in the base material thin so as to follow a shape of the linear body
Implementation Method 2
the sewing thread is inserted into the thermal fusion bonding part of the linear body... causing the sewing thread to be inserted into the thermal fusion bonding part of the linear body to give the sewing thread a basically flat shape
Implementation Method 3
a heater unit in which a heater wire is arranged in a predetermined pattern shape on a base material
Implementation Method 4
temperature detection is performed by detecting a change in a resistance value due to a temperature of the sensor wire
Data Source
AI summary
The planar unit is made up of a base material and a linear body to be arranged on the base material, the linear body being one of or both a heater wire and a sensor wire, wherein a thermal fusion bonding part is formed on an outermost layer of the linear body, and either the planar unit includes a sewing thread that couples the linear body and the base material to each other, the sewing thread penetrating into the thermal fusion bonding part of the linear body or the planar unit includes a sewing thread mark created by melting of a sewing thread that couples the linear body and the base material to each other, the thermal fusion bonding part of the linear body and the sewing thread mark having been planarized. In the steering wheel, the planar unit is installed between the wheel core material and the covering material.